


Seeds In Black Earth

by zuzeca



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Thorin Lives, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet, Domestic Fluff, Dwarves in the Shire, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:39:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3273671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzeca/pseuds/zuzeca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter is coming to an end, and Bilbo's garden has begun to grow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds In Black Earth

**Author's Note:**

> These two are owed a longer and more complex story from me, and they will have it, but for now you get a tiny, feelsy, partial-AU drabble. Dedicated to [grimcognito](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grimcognito/), whose encouragement to stop just talking about writing Bilbo and Thorin and actually do it finally bore fruit. X3 Enjoy.

A cluster of tiny green shoots had sprouted near the door to Bag End, bumping up against the flagstones, and Thorin was watching them.

The majority of the garden was still brown with the slush and mud remnants of winter. Hamfast had tended the beds faithfully while his employer had been away, and Bilbo assured Thorin that in a month or two the soil would come alive with new growth. He’d then proceeded to wax on nigh-lyrically about his plans for the impending asparagus. Thorin, whose only encounter with the stuff had come in the form of the sickly verdant preserved stalks stuffed into jars in Bilbo’s pantry, had resigned himself to the prospect of an unpleasantly green future. But it was not the asparagus that arrested Thorin’s attention. Rather the scant patch of earth by the round door of Bilbo’s—he still refused to acknowledge himself as anything more than an indefinite houseguest—home, a bare bit of soil which as far as Thorin understood, had nothing planted in it at all.

He shifted his weight, contemplating the puzzling growth, and winced as scarring tissue pulled and muscles cramped. The lingering damp cold now crept into his bones in a way he could not remember it doing even a year ago, and had it only been a year? It seemed a lifetime, a stranger’s lifetime, the dwarf he had been a barely recognizable memory, rendered as he was now into a wraith of his former self. He knew himself, could remember being that self even, but he could not recapture it, not slip back into the skin of confidence and strength.

Perhaps Thorin Oakenshield truly had died at the Lonely Mountain.

The door swung open and Bilbo peeped from the entryway, head cocked as he regarded Thorin. “The kettle’s on and the scones are cooling,” he said. “Are you going to come in for tea or continue glowering at the garden?”

Thorin’s mouth flattened, but then he caught the edge of worry in Bilbo’s eyes and he released his building rancor with a great huff of breath, steam curling before him like the portentous smoke that preceded dragon fire. A new lesson, and hard-learnt, and shaped by the ache of his throat as he and Bilbo shouted themselves hoarse at each other, but they’d both become skilled at ascertaining which wounds could be lanced to drain their poison and which would remain, to be acknowledged another day. “Those plants,” he said, indicating the cluster. “You mentioned nothing of any being sown there. What are they?”

Bilbo frowned and crouched, squinting at the tender shoots in the cold, bright sunlight. “These?” he said. “I’m not certain. Possibly a weed. I certainly didn’t plant them if that’s what you’re asking, though the immature plants look awfully familiar—” He broke off, staring at them.

“What is it?”

Bilbo reached out and tugged a wisp of ragged cloth from the dirt and held it up, soaked with mud but for an edge stained rust brown. “This is where you flung Oin’s poultice,” he said quietly. “The night you ripped open your guts and I had to track you through the snow by the blood trail you left.” He turned the scrap over in his fingers, “I hadn’t had to do that since my mother.”

Thorin’s stomach clenched and his fingers flexed restlessly, wanting to reach out and yet somehow paralyzed. “And the plants?” he managed, because it was safer, because it didn’t dig into the howling loss that shifted under his own skin.

“Oh right,” said Bilbo, shaking his head sharply. “Terribly poisonous of course, but they work marvelously in poultices, protect against the pain and the heat. Some of the seeds must have gotten mixed in with the leaves and flowers. And the flowers themselves are quite beautiful. They start to come in while it's still cold and inhospitable.” He smiled, half to himself, “Snapdragons.”

Thorin’s breath froze. His mouth worked, but words did not come.

Bilbo rose, dusting his hands on his trousers. “The kettle’s probably hot by now.” He smiled at Thorin and there was none of the rigid brittleness that Thorin could feel in his own expression whenever he smiled. “I unearthed a jar of blackberry jam from the pantry. Last one until the next crop comes in.” He held out his hand.

He could have stayed there, in the slush and the cold, the Mahal-cursed cold, but he reached out, and took Bilbo’s hand, and for a moment the numbness receded. Bilbo’s fingers were warm, and he smelled of flour when Thorin drew him close.

The snapdragons, when they finally bloomed, were as red as Thorin’s blood on the ice of Ravenhill, and Bilbo held him through that quiet night, pressing soft kisses against his hair, as at last he wept for his nephews.


End file.
